132 CHALLENGER 



The Wardroom ante-room had been taken over ruthlessly dur- 

 ing the refit for use as a printing office and there were sinks, 

 vacuum frames, arc-lamps and a w^hirler for coating the plates all 

 packed into this small compartment. This left no room for the 

 press itself, which had been fitted on the upper deck, close for- 

 ward of the Captain's cabin ; when in use a canvas tent w^as rigged 

 around the press. 



The day temperatures were far too high and fluctuating to 

 permit good printing, for the inks became too liquid and spread 

 over the surface of the zinc, so all-night printing was ordered. 



The ship of course was darkened, and no glimnier of light 

 must emerge from the printing tent. Inside, stripped to the w^aist, 

 were Corporal Lavs^s and a seaman from the duty watch. Laws was 

 rolling up the printing plate time and time again with the hand 

 roller like a pastry cook, while his seaman assistant turned the 

 handle of the press at required intervals like a housewife at her 

 mangle. The hours of the night slid by, the thudding of the 

 printer's roller, the creak of the press and the murmur of con- 

 versation between the two men a background to the light sleep 

 of the Captain in his bunk only a few feet away through the open 

 square port. Any pause in this rhythm would awaken him and 

 he would come out to the printers' shelter in his pyjamas and 

 bedroom slippers to see what the hold-up might be. Perhaps it 

 was a brief pause for tea, but more often it was a halt to clear the 

 hand roller, the ink-slab and the printing zinc, which had all 

 become hopelessly covered by invasions of flying beetles which 

 were struggling in the morass of sticky printer's ink. 



After seven days gG copies of Eastern Fleet Chart No. i had 

 been printed and as each chart had to be printed in two halves 

 there was also the difficult job of joining them together. Paper 

 is very sensitive to differing temperatures and soon absorbs 

 moisture in a damp tropical atmosphere. This makes the paper 

 change its shape by contracting or expanding, and it often be- 

 came necessary to dry out the two halves of the chart in the 

 baker's oven in the ship's galley before they would fit exactly 

 together. 



Printing under all these difficulties meant that some copies of 

 the chart were better than others but there was always a keen 

 demand for the new charts in the Fleet. The King's Harbour- 



